1. Technical Field
The present invention relates to a method of injecting a liquid into a liquid container of an open-air type that supplies a liquid contained in a container body detachably attached to a liquid consuming device and a liquid container manufactured using the method.
2. Related Art
Examples of the liquid container and the liquid consuming device include an ink cartridge of an open-air type containing an ink liquid and an ink jet printer to which the ink cartridge is detachably attached.
In the ink cartridge, a container body detachably attached to a cartridge-attached portion of the ink jet printer generally includes an ink containing chamber for containing ink I, an ink supply port for supplying the ink contained in the ink containing chamber to the ink jet printer, an ink guide path for allowing the ink containing chamber to communicate with the ink supply port, and an air communicating path for introducing open air into the ink containing chamber from the outside with a consumption of the ink I contained in the ink containing chamber. When the ink cartridge is attached to the cartridge-attached portion of the ink jet printer, an ink supply needle equipped in the cartridge-attached portion is inserted into the ink supply port, and the stored ink I is then supplied to the printing head of the ink jet printer.
The printing head of the ink jet printer controls an ejecting process of an ink drop using heat or vibration. However, if the printing head operates in order to eject the ink I in a state where the ink is exhausted in the ink cartridge and the ink is not supplied, idle printing occurs. Accordingly, the printing head is damaged. In order to prevent the idle printing from occurring in the ink jet printer, it is necessary to monitor an amount of the residual ink liquid in the ink cartridge.
Accordingly, in order to prevent the idle printing from occurring when the ink stored in the ink cartridge is completely exhausted, there is suggested an ink cartridge that is equipped with a liquid residual quantity sensor for outputting a predetermined electrical signal to the ink jet printer when the residual quantity of the ink I contained in the container body is consumed up to a threshold in advance (for example, Patent Document 1).
Patent Document 1: JP-A-2001-146030
An ink cartridge is a high precision container constituted by multiple elements and thus the container is more expensive than the ink which is the content thereof. For this reason, when the ink is exhausted, the disposal of the ink cartridge results in a waste of a useful resource and a big economical loss.
Accordingly, it is required that the used ink cartridge be re-used by injecting ink thereinto.
However, when the known ink cartridge is manufactured, an ink injecting step of the ink I is included. Accordingly, after the ink cartridge is manufactured, there are many cases where the same ink injecting step cannot be used.
As a result, it is necessary to develop a method of injecting ink in order to embody a re-filling of the ink I, instead of the ink injecting method when a new ink cartridge is manufactured.
A recent ink cartridge becomes high efficient in that a differential pressure valve that is provided to an ink guide path for allowing the ink containing chamber to communicate with an ink supple hole to adjust an ink pressure that allows the ink to be supplied to the ink supply port and that also serves as a non-return valve for preventing the ink from flowing backward from an ink supply port is provided, or a liquid residual quantity sensor that is used for detecting an amount of the residual ink I are equipped in the ink cartridge. Moreover, a configuration of the ink containing chamber or an air communicating path becomes complicated to maintain a good quality of the stored ink I for a long time.
For this reason, if a container body is arranged carelessly at the time of injecting the ink I, the ink I may leak into portions other than the ink containing chamber or an original function may be damaged due to bubbles B mixed at the time of injecting the ink. Therefore, a poor recovery may be caused.
In addition, since the steps of injecting ink into the container body are complicated and it is expensive to perform the process, the recovery cost may be more expensive than a manufacturing cost of a new ink cartridge. Then, there is no sense in recovering the ink cartridge.